This free 6 week course is for anyone who wants to make a difference. Whether you are already familiar with the field of social innovation or social entrepreneurship, working for an organization that wants to increase its social impact, or just starting out, this course will take you on a journey of exploring the complex problems that surround us and how to start thinking about solutions.
We will debunk common assumptions around what resources are needed to begin acting as a social innovator. We will learn from the numerous examples of social innovations happening all over the world. You will be challenged to get out of your comfort zone and start engaging with the diverse spaces around you. By the end of the course, you will have formed your own approach to social innovation, and you will have begun to develop the concepts, mindset, skills, and relationships that will enable you to start and evolve as a changemaker.
You will be able to purchase a Verified Certificate if you wish to show evidence of your achievements, but this is optional, and you may apply for Financial Aid if you are unable to pay the certificate fee.
The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship co-created this course with RLabs, a social movement ‘born-and-bred’ in Bridgetown, Cape Town that is now active in 22 countries. The movement empowers youth through innovative and disruptive technology by teaching them vital skills and providing much needed support and a sense of community. Advocating and supporting initiatives such as RLabs forms part of the Bertha Centre’s mandate. The Centre is a specialised unit at University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, and is the first academic centre in Africa dedicated to advancing social innovation and entrepreneurship.
You can view the course trailer at www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWYG64WO20
Tweet about this course using the hashtag #socinnMOOC

AH

This course has changed my life and I hope I can do even just a tiny bit to change the world. Well worth it for anyone tired of seeing the need for change and not knowing how to take action.

SS

Jan 23, 2018

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

I didn't know that my mind was capable of thinking as the mind of a change maker until I took this course. This course will help streamline your thought process in trying to solve a problem.

從本節課中

Getting out of your comfort zone

By nature the world of social innovation is made of crossing boundaries, bringing together different actors, resources, spaces, but it can be overwhelming. Part of our challenge on the journey to becoming changemakers is to learn how to become comfortable with discomfort and how in the social innovation space where you take yourself into spaces and you surround yourself with people that you normally do not engage with. Understanding how we define differences using cultural, sociological, psychological and spiritual lenses and what the nature of the differences is helps to develop tools for getting out of your comfort zone. It takes a little bit of courage because it makes you uncomfortable, but that’s how you build the competencies, the personal resilience to engage with difference when we do go and drive for innovations or we look to make differences in communities that are unlike us or operate in a different way.

教學方

François Bonnici

Director

Warren Nilsson

Associate Professor

Marlon Parker

Founder

腳本

[MUSIC] Earlier you heard about understanding difference. Now we'd like to unpack how to actually engage difference. Let me start with a personal story. When I was younger, I grew up in a neighbourhood that shared many social norms. Very similar in its views on life and had a number of truths or perspectives, which served the community well but was quite close in its sense. I wasn't aware of its closeness until I needed to engage others outside of that community in order to grow as a person but also engage In businesses of difference. For me to do that, I had to engage other people outside of the community. For one, for me to engage difference, I have to be open to a democracy of emotions. What that means is, do I have the maturity, the maturity to engage others in a vulnerable space allowing myself to be open to your other perspectives, other viewpoints that doesn't cause me to feel threatened, fearful, and feeling under attack. Initially, I ran into issues with my truth being challenged. My inability to unlearn those very norms which I learned growing up in my community. And so, I had to take on a sort of personal transformation, in which I was open to other people's stories. There was a willingness to unlearn, and I had to learn to dialogue. Dialogue in the sense that I had to both share my meaning, and be open to other people's meanings, and not try and force my meaning on to other people as I was so accustomed to do in my closed community. So, on a practical level, am I open to your other stories in a way that I'm willing to let go of my own truths, my own realities, my own perspectives. Am I willing to unlearn some of the stuff that has served me well up to this point, but may not serve me will going forward? And that does talk to my ability to dialogue and to have conversations in which meaning could flow between myself and someone or something that is different to me. Then in order to grow both socially and economically through business growth, I then had to engage in what is known as political acumen or negotiating using power. This was new to me, I had to learn how to work within and through networks. I had to learn how to negotiate, compromise, influence the compromise, and constantly keep at top of mind my ability to rise above my history. So those three core concepts, a democracy of emotions, where I'm open in a mature way to other people. Personal transformation, a willingness to let go and learn dialogue, being open to other stories. And then power negotiation, the ability to use political acumen to build networks and work through networks while I try to serve a common good. [MUSIC]